Bivalves are a big part of the US fishing industry. You can explore some of the risks to them by looking over the recent history of their cultivation in the US and globally.
Ocean acidification, waste water outlets, garbage dumping, and storm water runoff are threats to pop-up farms over the next few decades. After that, acidification combined with temperature and pollution could be too damaging, either to farming efforts or to the quality of the food.
Ocean currents near shore can produce lower pH (e.g., 7.65 as opposed to global avg 8.04 (edit:8.1, not because I believe it but because that’s the consensus) from upwelling, colder, more acidic water on the west coast of the US) in coastal waters. Bivalves are sensitive to increased acidity of ocean water. Their fertilization rates decrease and their juvenile mortality increases. There might be an effect on their maturation size as well.
Ocean average pH decline has one estimate pinning it at 7.8 by 2094. It is currently 8.1 and dropping. That avg allows wide variation in the availability of carbonate and calcium ions for shell formation in different waters across the globe. Heat maps show largest declines in availability of carbonate near the poles and with unequal distributions around the equator. Measurement data from 2006, I think, shows recent changes in carbonate chemistry occurring in the top 200 meters of the ocean, where marine ecosystems are most productive.
I believe that marine biologists would agree that loss of shell-forming organisms in the ocean would create a ripple effect throughout the world’s oceans. The discussions I have reviewed so far suggest that sea butterflies, a shell-forming marine animal that is food for larger fish we know, will die out under certain environmental stresses, emptying the ocean of their predators. That pathway to a die-off of marine life is identified repeatedly. Maybe because it matters to the commercial fishing industry. Without sea butterflies, the major food source for fish that we like to eat will be gone. The question then is whether ocean chemistry will allow widespread bivalve production for a significant time period.
I can’t find consensus estimates of the timing of marine life die-offs triggered by the loss of sea butterflies. pH avg change models from NOAA suggest that pH reaches 7.8 before the end of the century. That is below the point where the shell dissolves off a sea butterfly (sea snail) body. Is that pH enough to kill all bivalves? I don’t know, but you could probably answer that question easily.
Interestingly, the only public claim of the likely death of marine life as a whole within this century that I could find credits multiple simultaneous stresses on marine life, including a massive poisoning of plankton by pollutants riding on micro-plastics that plankton consume combined with a loss of shell-bearing organisms at a global avg pH of just 7.95. The source of that claim pins the outcome as occurring by 2050. That is not a consensus opinion but there’s not much to contradict it, just lack of research and lack of attention. An implication of that claim is that the ocean is no longer supplying oxygen to the atmosphere.
EDIT: there is one area where there is some consensus, it’s that the coral reefs of the world will all be lost by 2050. That is a tipping point for ocean ecology.
Given the lead time of any plan to increase bivalve farming, jellyfish might do better as food from the ocean once the larger problem is recognized after the first global famine of the century is over. There will probably be multiple food shortages, mishandling of those shortages, and lack of preparation for further shortages this century that approach a global famine at least once and probably twice.
In the meantime, people everywhere will probably prefer fish like salmon and tuna and shrimp as seafood rather than exclusively bivalves.
Speaking for myself, I’m allergic to shellfish. Bivalves are a common allergen food. After trying some cricket flour in a protein bar, I developed a case of hives. Apparently an allergy to shellfish implies an allergy to insects because of some kind of biological similarity.
Bivalves are a big part of the US fishing industry. You can explore some of the risks to them by looking over the recent history of their cultivation in the US and globally.
Ocean acidification, waste water outlets, garbage dumping, and storm water runoff are threats to pop-up farms over the next few decades. After that, acidification combined with temperature and pollution could be too damaging, either to farming efforts or to the quality of the food.
Ocean currents near shore can produce lower pH (e.g., 7.65 as opposed to global avg 8.04 (edit:8.1, not because I believe it but because that’s the consensus) from upwelling, colder, more acidic water on the west coast of the US) in coastal waters. Bivalves are sensitive to increased acidity of ocean water. Their fertilization rates decrease and their juvenile mortality increases. There might be an effect on their maturation size as well.
Ocean average pH decline has one estimate pinning it at 7.8 by 2094. It is currently 8.1 and dropping. That avg allows wide variation in the availability of carbonate and calcium ions for shell formation in different waters across the globe. Heat maps show largest declines in availability of carbonate near the poles and with unequal distributions around the equator. Measurement data from 2006, I think, shows recent changes in carbonate chemistry occurring in the top 200 meters of the ocean, where marine ecosystems are most productive.
I believe that marine biologists would agree that loss of shell-forming organisms in the ocean would create a ripple effect throughout the world’s oceans. The discussions I have reviewed so far suggest that sea butterflies, a shell-forming marine animal that is food for larger fish we know, will die out under certain environmental stresses, emptying the ocean of their predators. That pathway to a die-off of marine life is identified repeatedly. Maybe because it matters to the commercial fishing industry. Without sea butterflies, the major food source for fish that we like to eat will be gone. The question then is whether ocean chemistry will allow widespread bivalve production for a significant time period.
I can’t find consensus estimates of the timing of marine life die-offs triggered by the loss of sea butterflies. pH avg change models from NOAA suggest that pH reaches 7.8 before the end of the century. That is below the point where the shell dissolves off a sea butterfly (sea snail) body. Is that pH enough to kill all bivalves? I don’t know, but you could probably answer that question easily.
Interestingly, the only public claim of the likely death of marine life as a whole within this century that I could find credits multiple simultaneous stresses on marine life, including a massive poisoning of plankton by pollutants riding on micro-plastics that plankton consume combined with a loss of shell-bearing organisms at a global avg pH of just 7.95. The source of that claim pins the outcome as occurring by 2050. That is not a consensus opinion but there’s not much to contradict it, just lack of research and lack of attention. An implication of that claim is that the ocean is no longer supplying oxygen to the atmosphere.
EDIT: there is one area where there is some consensus, it’s that the coral reefs of the world will all be lost by 2050. That is a tipping point for ocean ecology.
Given the lead time of any plan to increase bivalve farming, jellyfish might do better as food from the ocean once the larger problem is recognized after the first global famine of the century is over. There will probably be multiple food shortages, mishandling of those shortages, and lack of preparation for further shortages this century that approach a global famine at least once and probably twice.
In the meantime, people everywhere will probably prefer fish like salmon and tuna and shrimp as seafood rather than exclusively bivalves.
Speaking for myself, I’m allergic to shellfish. Bivalves are a common allergen food. After trying some cricket flour in a protein bar, I developed a case of hives. Apparently an allergy to shellfish implies an allergy to insects because of some kind of biological similarity.
Thanks, I didn’t know most of this information!
Also, I see two claims:
Coral reefs all lost by 2050
Death of all marine life within this century, with one claim that this will occur by 2050
The first one sounds quite serious and potentially very serious. The second one sounds catastrophic?
I didn’t know the magnitude of the risk was this big. Is this a cause area that could benefit from more funding or research, too?
Hi Brian, short answer, yes. Of course.
Look into jellyfish as a food source.
The death of the oceans is progressive and predictable, if you assume that causes of it continue into the future.
Thanks for the reply Noah. Are you working on this field or a related one?
Sure, I think you guys (and those folks at the UN) and the general topic of food security is incredibly important.
I am not working in this area professionally, nothing even close to it.